Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death has generated an outpouring of grief around the globe. Part of this grief reflects her unparalleled status as a feminist icon and pioneer for women in the legal profession and beyond. There is already considerable interest in what her departure means for the future of the US Supreme Court, and...
Ecologists and conservation experts in government, industry and universities are routinely constrained in communicating scientific evidence on threatened species, mining, logging and other threats to the environment, our new research has found. Our study, just published, shows how important scientific information about environmental threats often does not reach the public or decision-makers, including government ministers....
After 16 weeks in an industrial compost heap, we unearthed blue and white balloons and found them totally unscathed. The knots we spent hours painstakingly tying by hand more than four months ago were still attached, and sparkly blue balloons still glinted in the sun. These balloons originally came from packages that advertised them as...
Croplands are a valuable, yet scarce natural resource. To guard against serious and potentially irreversible environmental harm, croplands should not extend beyond 15% of the earth’s ice-free surface. Croplands are mainly used for food production. So it’s important to ask whether our diets are biting off more than our fair share. In recent research, we...
Australia prides itself on being a successful multicultural society. Yet Australian television does not reflect the make-up of the wider community. This in turn means many stories of multicultural Australians remain untold. An analysis by Deakin University, to be launched today, shows Australian television news and current affairs programs across all channels are overwhelmingly curated,...
On 13 August [today] a new documentary, Voices on the Road, will launch online worldwide, following a year of screenings at international film festivals such as Tampere Film Festival. The 23-minute documentary follows the building of a road that is quietly destroying a protected rainforest deep in the remote Peruvian Amazon, causing conflict, fear and...
Access to mental health support has never been more important, as Melburnians are hit with a stage 4 lockdown and much of the rest of Australia braces for a potential second wave of COVID-19. This year, many mental health professionals have moved to providing telehealth services via phone and video calls. But what options are...
The COVID-19 pandemic has driven a surge of calls to domestic violence support services, as survivors of violence spend more time at home with their abusers due to lockdowns and other restrictions. Many feel they can’t leave — or that they must return to abusers — because they lack financial security or are unsure about...
A remote beach clean-up campaign between Sea Shepherd Australia and the Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation has exposed the unrelenting plastic pollution crisis along northern Australia’s coastlines. For the second year in a row, Sea Shepherd volunteers and Indigenous Rangers from Dhimurru have joined forces for an intensive beach clean-up at Djulpan in Northeast Arnhem Land, Northern...
Limiting global warming to well below two degrees Celsius this century requires carbon emissions to reach net zero by around 2050. Australian households have done much to support the transition via rooftop solar investments. Now it’s time for organisations to take a more serious role. The University of Queensland’s efforts to reduce its electricity emissions...
The ABC has launched a new series of programs and resources to explore the urgent environmental challenges facing the planet and the ways in which all Australians can be part of the solution. ABC Your Planet builds on the ABC’s coverage of climate and environmental issues by enabling audiences to counter challenges such as climate change...
Why are there so few women at the top levels of politics? This question is at the centre of the new book, Women and Leadership, co-authored by Australia’s first woman prime minister, Julia Gillard, and former Nigerian finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Using their personal experiences and interviews with an impressive group of eight women leaders...